Jimmy’s Blog

I was in New York for part of this week to attend the Asian Leadership Summit (which turned out to be an outstanding conference).   I arrived in NY on Tuesday night for the conf – which was on Wed and Thur.

I wish I had been in DC on Tuesday night since the city was shaking with excitement about the presidential elections.   But, if you can’t be in DC on Election Night, NY is a good second option.

As with most everyone else, I was closely watching the election results on Tuesday night.  As I headed back to the hotel, I heard a lot of noise in Times Square.   So, I walked a couple of blocks there – and, lo and behold, what an amazing crowd.  And, just as I was taking in the action, the big TV screens announced Obama as the winner.   The joy, excitement and shrieking of the crowd was unbelieveable.   People were screaming, hugging and high-fiving each other.   Cars were honking and honking.   It was definitely a memorable scene.   What a historic day / night.

Today’s presidential elections will no doubt be record-setting in terms of the number of people that come out to vote.   As the morning news has been showing, there are already long, long lines on the east coast.  It’s terrific to see such a great turnout.

I did absentee voting last Thursday since I’m going to be on business travel today.   It took a little more than a hour last week to vote …. I can’t even imagine what it’ll be like today …. maybe two to three hours?

Living in the Washington, DC area is terrific, especially around election time … this city is completely energized.

And, I’m sure most people are already seeing the effect of new media on the elections … the number of emails, the text messages, the Facebook messages, the ads on numerous internet sites.   There’s no doubt that new media will continue to have a bigger impact on upcoming political elections, particularly in getting the youths out to vote.

It’ll be an interesting 18 – 24 hours!

So, for the second year in a row, not one Trick or Treater came to the door!  So disappointing.   I live in a community w/ 150 townhouses – right outside of DC and in Arlington County.   Most of the neighbors had their lights on … so they were expecting to dispense candy, too.   There aren’t very many children in the neighborhood but I thought some kids would still come by for the candy.

I’m sure it’s much different in the suburbs w/ single-family homes.

Also, although I live less than mile from Georgetown, I stayed away from the crazy scene.  After seeing the large crowds on the local news, I’m glad I stayed away.

Last night, I attended Cirque du Soleil’s “Kazoo” show.  I wasn’t sure what to expect going into the performance since I’m accustomed to their grand spectacles at the lavish hotels in Vegas.  But, as could have been predicted, it wasn’t another amazing performance.

They perform one terrific act after another … the time flies … the audience is certainly entertained.  Our whole row of friends were shrieking with joy.

The practice that goes into each performance must be intense … from the contortionists to the high-wire acts to the uni-cyclist to the juggler and on and on.

If you’ve never gone to a Cirque show, my strong recommendation is to go and check it out.   You’ll be entertained.   It’s money well-spent.

I finally started blogging last week on a regular basis, but no one knows about it.   According to the blog stats, I’ve had zero visits over the past few days.  LOL.  Guess I’ll add it to my facebook status update or something … we’ll see what kind of impact that has.

Speaking of Facebook, at my recent guest lecture at JMU, I asked the 125 – 150 students in attendance how many use MySpace and many use Facebook.  Not one student uses MySpace!  And, over 90% use Facebook.   Those are similar numbers to when I polled my students at Georgetown.

Of course, 3 – 4 years from now, the college students will probably be using another social networking site.

My baseball game on Sunday was canceled due to the heavy rains on Saturday afternoon and night.  So, I ended up going to watch the Marine Corps Marathon for a couple of hours.  A good friend of mine, Mike Honeycutt, was visiting from Dallas and running in this year’s marathon.   I believe it was his 8th marathon.

It was truly a great experience to watch the marathon — they had over 30,000 registered runners (although only 18,000 finished).  But, nonetheless, the support from so many, many people must have been great for the runners.  The streets were lined for miles with family members and friends supporting the runners.

And, major kudos to the US Marine Corps for hosting what looked to be a first-class event.

I have great admiration for people that can run a marathon — it’s amazing to see the variety of people — all ages, races, sizes, etc.  It must take great mental strength to pound away for hours.

My hats off to all that participated in the MCM.

Saturday was a good day to stay home and watch college football!  This was particularly true in the DC region since the weather was horrible — lots of rain and cold, windy weather.

Although neither game was on live, two of my favorite teams – the OU Sooners and Maryland Terps — both won.  So, OU will remain in the top 5 while Maryland is now bowl-eliigible and should hopefully finally crack the Top 25.

A couple of great match-ups on Sat night — with OSU v Penn State and Alabama – Georgia.  Of course, I’m a huge baseball fan and wanted to watch the World Series but Game 3 was delayed a couple of hours due to the torrential rains in Philly.

Thank you to my friends that showed up last night at the Greater DC Cares event at Park on 14th St.  I was fortunate enough to be one of the ten recipients of Greater DC Cares’ inaugural 2008 “Class of Change,” honoring DC’s rising leaders in philanthropy.

It was wonderful to have close friends, co-workers, mentees, non-profit friends, etc in attendance.

To me, the most important thing about being recognized is that it allows us to further promote and raise awareness of the non-profits we work with … it’s so important to “give back,” to mentor and to provide community service.  It helps to create a more level playing field.   The more we do this, the better our community can and will be.

I’m grateful to all for your help, support and involvement.

A special thank you to Ted Leonsis and Mario Morino, my two philanthropy mentors, for ”showing me the way” over the past 10+ years.

As I wrote in my blog about the visit to Brazil, I was definitely impacted by the tour of the favelas in Rio de Janeiro.  What’s a favela?  Per Wikipedia, a favela is the Brazilian term for shanty town, or as they say in the US, a ghetto.  The apt description per Wiki is that a favela is constructed from a wide range of materials — from bricks to garbage.

The conditions are almost indescribable … one needs to see pictures, videos or actually visit in person.   I went to the barnesandnoble.com site to purchase a couple of books and dvd’s to learn more about the favelas.

Apparently, 1out of 4 or 1 out of 5 Rio citizens live in a favela.   The conditions are so horrid … the personal hygiene must suffer dramatically.

Why do I care so much?  Because I’m very active in working with inner-city children in DC from less-privileged backgrounds.   I see the vicious cycle that occurs when a teen-aged girl gets pregnant, has no support from a father, and then tries to raise the child w/ limited funds.  The more that others can to help create a level playing field, the better off for all.

Unfortunately, in the Rio favelas, although one can try to give and donate, apparently the youth won’t get the funds – the parents or older siblings will take it (according to the tour guide).  Fortunately, in the US, one can help support urban youth (by helping w/ their high school education, college test preparation, applying to colleges and mentoring throughout their collegiate years).

I’ll write more after I read and watch the books and videos about the favelas.